


Roll With It

by CosmoKid



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Battle, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Childhood Memories, Confused Steve Rogers, Eye Gouging, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Minor Character Death, Reunions, The Guardians of the Galaxy - Freeform, i guess?, not much though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-02 18:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14551227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmoKid/pseuds/CosmoKid
Summary: In which Steve Rogers will punch anything, including the most powerful being in the universe, which somehow leads to him helping to save half of the universe.





	Roll With It

**Author's Note:**

> ive now seen infinity war twice and it still hurts so i wrote a fix it that includes a battle even though i cant write that to save my life
> 
>  
> 
> also @joss whedon, steve rogers swears like a sailor

Steve Rogers is tired.

It’s been a long day. There are new aliens to fight and they just keep coming, and some weird giant grape guy wants to destroy the universe by killing one of the only friends he has left. Tony’s missing, and Steve may not have talked to him for two years, but he fought alongside him. He’s not ashamed to say he missed him. Friendships, or lack thereof, hardly matter anymore. Not with Wanda slowly killing Vision behind him and all his friends being overrun by whatever the fuck those things are. He’s just tired.

So when Thanos appears and starts his dramatic walk towards Vision, Steve doesn’t care. He doesn’t care that Thanos is at least two times his size, is the most powerful being in the universe, and could probably toss him aside with his mind or whatever. He doesn’t care. 

All that’s going through his mind as he finds himself rushing to meet Thanos before he can reach Vision is that if he’s going to die now, at least this day will end.

When he reaches up to push Thanos away, he gets a cool shock. The Infinity Gauntlet is much colder than he was expecting. It thrums with power in his hands as he uses all of his strength to hold Thanos’ hand in place. His legs shake and his feet slip in the mud. Gritting his teeth, he looks up to stare at Thanos, who is looking down at Steve with mild curiosity in his eyes. There’s something horribly infuriating about it. This monster looking down at Steve as if he’s a child first discovering beetles.

The anger fuels his next move as he lets go of the glove with one hand and punches upward, catching the underside of his gigantic chin. Thanos’ head moves upward with his fist, his eyes widening.

Thanos stops and his head cocks to the side. His colossal purple hand reaches up to his mouth and Steve feels like he’s watching it in slow motion. 

“You made me bleed,” he says slowly, staring at his bloody hand. A small drop of blood drips out of Thanos’ mouth and onto the Gauntlet.

“You’ll bleed like a motherfucker when I’m done with you,” Steve says in a low voice. 

The purple giant, who is truly horribly looking, regards him for a few seconds with narrowed eyes. “Steve Rogers, the soldier. A man out of time,” he murmurs.

He grits his teeth, ignoring the acknowledgment. He kicks at Thanos’ leg and pushes his hand up toward his face. The giant wobbles for less than a second before regaining balance and letting out a laugh. The whole situation feels surreal.

“A valiant effort,” he says softly and waves his free hand. 

Steve stumbles back, only realizing how loud the battlefield was now that it’s entirely silent. He glances around to reveal everyone frozen, many in mid-action while others are lying broken on the coarse ground of Wakanda. “What did you do?” he asks in a shaky voice. He wipes his mouth and glares up at the giant. “ _What did you do?_ ”

“Why are you fighting me, Captain?” Thanos asks in lieu of answering Steve’s question. His voice is soft and he genuinely sounds confused. There’s something disturbingly unsettling about it.

“Why am I-” he starts. His mind is reeling as he tries to process it all. “You want to destroy the universe.”

“Half of the universe,” Thanos corrects as if it’s any better. Steve stares at him and his mouth falls open. He’s so confused and so tired.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m fighting you because you want to destroy half of the universe and funnily enough, I’m not a fan of mass genocide,” he says, running his hand through his hair. He wants to punch Thanos and knock him down, but he doesn’t know what’s going on, and what will happen to everyone frozen if anything happens to Thanos.

“Out of everyone, I thought you’d be the one to understand. How disappointing,” Thanos murmurs and his gaze lifts up to stare out into the treeline. “Not even a century ago, you were willing to sacrifice yourself for the greater good.”

“Right because avoiding mass genocide and causing it is the exact same fucking thing" he huffs, his hands clenching at his sides. 

“My homeworld was very similar to this one, you know?” Thanos questions, and Steve really does not know because he has no fucking clue where Thanos is from and he really does not fucking care. The talking grape could be from a planet made entirely of diamond and shawarma and Steve would still not fucking care. 

“Titan was beautiful. For years, we thrived. Every day seemed to bring a new development and every day brought happiness to us. For every night of my childhood, I went to sleep with a full belly as did all the children on Titan. It was a paradise,” Thanos continues, his eyes almost glazed over. Steve can’t help but feel like the giant grape is looking at it all through rose-tinted glasses. “But we soon ran into the same problem all planets will. Too many mouths to feed. Titan had finite resources as does every planet in the universe, even your own. It’s a fact universally known and yet, no one is ever willing to acknowledge it. Children on Titan were starving and yet my people sat around, twiddling their thumbs, very much like your own. And so, I made a proposal-”

“Killing half of the population? That was your proposal?” he interrupts as he connects the dots in his head. 

“The deaths would bring balance to the universe. There would be enough to go around,” Thanos says and nods at his own statement as if he’s some kind of genius. Steve has met genius, and Thanos is not that.

“That’s your whole plan? Just massacring half of the universe so there will be enough resources for all?” he asks in disbelief. He blinks a few times as the giant nods again. “You don’t see any faults with it?”

“My people laughed at me until they died of starvation,” Thanos replies although Steve isn’t sure that it was aimed at him.

“No wonder. Your plan is fucking stupid and it doesn’t even address the actual reason for your problem.” He can’t help the laugh that escapes him. It’s hysterical.

Thanos doesn’t say anything for a few seconds and just stares at Steve with a thoughtful look on his face. He reaches out slowly with one hand, making Steve flinch. His hands fly up to his head and he shakes it. It feels like someone is inside it, twisting it.

“Fuck… off,” he breathes out, clenching his eyes shut and trying to force the presence out of his head through sheer force of will. “You don’t… you don’t have the… mind stone… how?”

“I do have the soul stone, however,” Thanos says and retreats from his mind. Steve stumbles back even more, barely able to avoid bumping into the still frozen Wanda. “You know suffering, Captain. You know the feeling of hunger, you’ve watched those around you starve to death, you’ve felt the brunt of scarce resources yourself and yet, you don’t agree with me. You’ve been willing to sacrifice parts of yourself for the greater good, even your life for the people of New York. You-”

“And I chose to do that. I chose to lay my life down for them. I had a choice,” he interrupts Thanos mid-monologue again, the aggression clear in his voice this time. “You want to take away the freedom of everyone in the universe before trying to talk to them. You won’t even try and convince them to do something about the problem, you just want to kill them all. You’re insane.”

“I think you’ll find I’m the sanest person,” Thanos tells him. His voice is still calm while Steve can’t even begin to reel in his emotions.

“You sound like Donald fucking Trump,” he mutters, running his hand through his hair again in anger. “You’re mad. Completely and utterly mad. How can you be the most powerful being in the universe? You’re a moron.”

“I’ve sacrificed more than you could ever know for this. To save you all,” Thanos says in a deep voice that feels like it echoes.

“You sacrificed it all for revenge,” Steve tells him, trying to keep his voice level. “You don’t truly want to save us. If you wanted to save the universe, you’d find another way that doesn’t involve killing half of the population. You want revenge for your people and the devastation you experienced. You want the world to know that you were right and that your people didn’t have to die. That’s all you want. To be revered as a savior without doing any of the saving.”

For the first time, it feels like Steve has hit a chink in Thanos’ armor. The giant’s eyes widen in anger and he breathes out heavily. “And what of you, Steven Rogers? The noble captain? You’d sacrifice the world for one man.”

He can’t help scanning the battlefield for Bucky. It’s only the metal arm that catches his focus. Bucky’s in mid-action, about to punch one of the aliens. The scene hits him hard, knowing Bucky didn’t want to fight again. He just wants peace and Steve _would_ sacrifice everything to give that to Bucky. He can’t deny that.

“I’ve never claimed otherwise,” he says in a quiet voice and looks back at Thanos.

“I had once thought that you were like me,” Thanos tells him and Steve rolls his eyes without thinking about it. “You’ve disappointed me.”

“ _Good_ ,” he says and takes a step toward the giant. “I would never want to be like you and I could never be. You’re a delusional man driven by revenge and grief. You don’t understand the fight you’re fighting and you’re willing to kill half of the universe for a temporary solution.”

“My solution is the only solution,” Thanos states in a firm voice, sounding entirely convinced.

Steve sighs and closes his eyes. He looks away from Thanos when he opens them, turning his gaze to Bucky again. “It’s not! It’s not even a good solution. In a couple of generations, there will be just as many people and what then? Will you kill half of them, again?”

“Populations can be controlled,” Thanos says loftily.

“By the people who already control the resources,” Steve agrees, layering every word with enough anger that Thanos understands that he’s not agreeing with any of his solutions. “You’re right. I’ve seen starvation. I’ve watched the people around me starve to death. I’ve felt hunger. I know what it’s like to hold a baby that you know won’t survive the winter and still feed it, and I know what it’s like to hold the same baby a month later when it’s cold and unmoving. I watched Bucky’s sister die slowly and painfully because we couldn’t afford medicine. I held Rebecca as she died, knowing that she could have been saved. And I held Bucky after as he cried and cried about losing his baby sister. Yes, Thanos, I know suffering.”

He takes a deep breath before continuing, trying to keep his voice level as the memory floods back. She’d looked so weak in that moment; she was tired and ready for death on her last day. He can remember her begging for death and how he had to be the one to hold Bucky when she passed. 

“But the reason I know suffering and why I know starvation is not due to finite resources. There was enough medicine. There were enough resources, and there still is. We were poor. Hated as Irish immigrants. We suffered in silence as the rest of our country experienced economic growth. We saved all our money for a loaf of bread and some ham on a Monday morning, and we made it last for the week between two families. We had a tiny garden where we could grow five crops at most and every Monday morning, me and Buck would walk past all the big houses where the rich people lived. There were no holes in their clothes and their pockets were deep. As we slowly starved to death, they’d go out dancing and for dinner. They’d throw away their leftovers because there was enough food to go around, but it was hoarded by the rich. Killing half of the population makes you just as bad as them. If you really wanted to solve universal hunger, you’d know that.”

He finds himself pacing as he speaks, surprised that Thanos doesn’t interrupt him. He knows he’s pushing his luck when he picks up a stray spear, but he also knows that this conversation can’t last forever. 

“You asked me why I’m fighting you, Thanos,” he starts and he spins the spear slowly in his hands. Pacing forward, he grits his teeth and takes a deep breath. “I want to save people, not slaughter them blindly to prove a point.”

And with that, he leaps towards the giant with the spear pointed at him with all the strength he has left. He anticipates the giant purple hand coming out to whack him out of the way and spins the spear at the last millisecond to aim at the hand. He feels it when it pierces his hand. Against his better judgment, he pushes it in further.

Thanos lets out a guttural sound of pain but laughs. “You’re strong Captain, but you’re a singular man.”

“I fought pneumonia off alone five times before the age of ten,” he tells the giant and pulls the spear out of his hand. He steps back and takes another deep breath. “You’re nothing compared to that. Just an asshole with an ego problem.”

He punctuates his words by stabbing at Thanos’ leg, but the purple giant just knocks him aside. He goes flying through the air, hitting a tree. The impact makes him groan, but he pushes himself up to his feet immediately.

“I won’t let you stand in my way, Captain. I’ve lost too much,” Thanos says and begins advancing on him. His steps are slow and methodical. They’d be intimidating if Steve hadn’t faced egomaniac, power-hungry morons before.

“You know nothing of loss.” 

It comes out as a growl as Steve launches himself off a nearby tree to grab onto the giant’s head. He scrambles to hold on as Thanos tries to shake him off, one fingers pressing into his eye. Trying not to let go, he presses his finger into Thanos’ eye until he hears a horribly squelch and a shout of pain from the giant. 

The attack stops him from moving for a second which is just enough time for Steve to act his plan out. He pulls his hand out of the eye socket and grips the spear with both hands, wrapping his legs around Thanos’ neck. The blood soaks the spear. Steve swallows rising vomit down and focusses on stabbing the spear into the small gap between the Infinity Gauntlet and Thanos’ arm and levering it off.

The Gauntlet doesn’t fly off exactly how he was expecting it, but it falls a little which is just enough for all the frozen people to spring into life. 

“Bucky! A little help?” he calls out before Thanos whacks him and he goes flying through the air again. The spear remains wedged in between through which is exactly what he wanted.

A bullet spray erupts at Thanos in the next couple of seconds as Bucky turns his attention to aiming for Thanos. They don’t do much damage, but it’s distracting him. Steve takes that opportunity to push himself up and run over to Wanda and Vision. He’s too tired to explain it so he just tackles Wanda to stop her and motions for Vision to get out of there. To his luck, Vision takes his advice this time, flying toward where he assumes Shuri still is.

“What happened?” Wanda asks him, sounding shocked and confused, but the relief is clear in her voice. 

“No idea,” he tells her and drags her up to focus on Thanos again. “The current goal is to get his Gauntlet off. I don’t know how, but the spear I somehow managed to lodge in there cut off his connection to the stones. Chop his arm off if you need to.”

He says it loud enough that he hopes Bucky and everyone else can hear it alongside Wanda. Ideally, he’d have everyone on the battlefield focus on Thanos, but there are hoards of those weird alien things still. He’ll take what he can get. 

It’s not like he has any clue what he’s doing anyway. He just gouged an alien’s eye out after having a discussion about master plans with him.

Taking another deep breath and really wishing he’d brought a drink with him, he leaps at Thanos again. He’s not expecting Wanda’s magic to boost him up, but he just rolls with it. He lands temporarily on Thanos’ shoulder and has enough time to shove the spear down again. It doesn’t do much and he goes flying again within seconds. It’s tiring and repetitive and he’s somehow getting seasick.

Wanda manages to land him on his feet this time which is much nicer than hitting a tree if not a little disorientating. He lands next to Bucky who just looks at him with a tired look on his face. “You never could stay out of trouble, could you, Stevie?”

He hasn’t the energy to come up with a snarky response to that so he just tells Bucky to fuck off which just makes his best friend grin and clap him on the shoulder. 

“Let’s go send this giant purple alien back to wherever the fuck he came from,” Bucky says and Steve can only just hear the determination in his voice behind the confusion and disbelief. It is the first time Bucky has seen an alien to be fair to him.

“Titan,” he supplies with enough confidence that it sounds like has a clue where that is.

“Good to know,” Bucky says although the tone of his voice is clearly portraying how useless that piece of information is.

In a manner that reminds him so much of their first fights together, it hurts, they both look at each other before running towards Thanos together. Wanda’s magic is focussed entirely on the Gauntlet, but it doesn’t appear to do much. Nor does almost anything any of them do for the next few minutes. It feels like Thanos is toying with them.

They punch and kick and hit him and throw magic at him in Wanda’s case, but Thanos responds to every attack with little effort. He just knocks them aside and occasionally growls. It feels completely useless, but he keeps going. He doesn’t even know what for. 

It, at least, appears to be going well for a while. And by well, he means that it looks like no one is winning which is all he could really hope for considering it’s two super soldiers and a girl who can move things with her mind against the most powerful being in the world. 

That all ends, however, when one of Thanos’ slaps knocks Wanda too far away for their rhythm to continue. It knocks them all off and within a few seconds, Steve is flying backward and hitting his head against another fucking tree, and when he looks up, Thanos has Bucky in a chokehold. Steve’s heart drops. He can’t breathe.

“You’ve proven your hand numerous times before. Stand aside and I’ll let him live,” Thanos says and his grip tightens around Bucky’s neck. Steve wants to throw up.

“Steve,” Bucky gasps out. His eyes are blown wide. “D-don’t.”

“I have nothing you want,” Steve says shakily. He has no clue what to say. There’s nothing Thanos can gain from blackmailing him, but this is where they’re at. “Vision has the stone, not me.”

“Stand aside,” Thanos repeats, his voice much deeper.

Steve bites his lip and stares at Bucky who just shakes his head. There’s so much pain in his eyes. Thanos’ grip tightens again and Bucky squeaks in anguish. Steve closes his eyes and shivers.

“No,” he says in a firm voice, but he regrets it in every inch of his body. 

“You’ll regret that,” Thanos tells him and Steve believes him, knowing he’s not strong enough to watch Bucky die twice. He can’t.

“He might, but I won’t,” a familiar voice says and Steve looks away from Bucky long enough to see a flash of red and gold before Thanos is hit by a blast. It causes him to drop Bucky and Steve doesn’t hesitate to run over to his side.

“Steve,” Bucky gasps out again. 

“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” he says in a quiet voice, letting Bucky use his shoulder as a support to sit up. He massages his neck before turning to look at Steve with a dejected look on his face. He has no idea what to say to Bucky who ends up just pushing his face into Steve’s neck and holding him tightly. Steve takes the moment to survey the battlefield for the source of the blast and remembers the imminent threat when he sees an Iron Man suit fighting Thanos. 

“Tell me you’re not getting back up to fight that grape monster,” Bucky murmurs and his tone tells Steve that he already knows the answer. His face just confirms it. Bucky nods with a resigned look on his face. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“How can I when all the stupid is with you?” he asks quietly and Bucky just chuckles and pushes Steve up to his feet. He turns to give Bucky a hand up. “You going back to fight the other aliens?”

Bucky nods and claps him on the shoulder before they separate to fight again. As he approaches the fight again, all he can think is how he wished he could kiss Bucky goodbye. 

That thought is knocked out of his head pretty quickly when Thanos slams the Iron Man suit into the ground and punches it hard. Steve takes a deep breath and leaps into action, punching the giant alien again. Again, it doesn’t do much, but it seems to distract him. The spear is still lodged where he left it, but it’s splintered into pieces.

“Steve,” the suit acknowledges and that’s definitely Tony. It should be a dramatic reunion, but today has already been too surreal for a reunion to even land a spot on the top ten list of weird moments today. The Thor reunion with a talking raccoon and a talking tree tops it.

“Tony,” he says and dodges a punch from Thanos. He takes a step back so Tony can blast Thanos again.

“You look like shit,” Tony tells him and Steve just laughs. He prepares for another punch, but Wanda’s magic appears out of nowhere, attaching itself to the Gauntlet and pulling again. “I’m safe to assume Vision’s still got the stone?”

He nods as he surveys the situation. “Last time I checked.”

“That’s not horrible,” Tony says and Steve nods again. There’s no other way to describe this situation other than maybe _could be better, could be worse_. “By the way, I have some friends coming down in a spaceship so don’t worry about that.”

Before Steve can reply, they’re interrupted by a war cry and Thor just appears in the sky from somewhere with his new ax that seems to have some kind of lightning power. He really doesn’t know what’s going on.

“Aim for the arm!” Tony yells as if this is entirely normal, but Thor listens. Steve, personally, would have interpreted it as just chopping off the part with the Gauntlet, but Thor just chops off from the shoulder down which works just as well. Maybe a little crueler, but he did gouge Thanos’ eye out not even ten minutes ago so he can’t really comment.

Thanos screams out in anger but is promptly shut up by something. And by something, he means another alien with antenna landing on Thanos’ shoulder and telling him to sleep. He does and Steve isn’t sure he isn’t asleep and this is all a dream because at least then it would make sense.

“Get it away from him!” a completely new voice yells from above and Steve looks up to see a spaceship hovering and a weird guy in a red cape hovering down to him alongside the spider-kid Tony seems to have adopted. 

“Those are the friends,” Tony tells him and his helmet disappears. It’s the first time he’s seen his face in two years and he tries not to react too much to it. There are bigger things to deal with right now.

That doesn’t matter though because another gigantic alien lands with a thud right in front of him followed by the red cape guy who lands softly. They’re joined by a blue alien who lands some kind of front flip thing that Steve doesn’t even attempt to process. He’s too confused to even realize that there’s still a battle going on.

“I’m going to find Vision,” Wanda says after looking between all the new aliens and Steve just nods, wishing he could use going to find Bucky as an excuse. 

Thor picks up the Gauntlet and looks at it with both contempt and confusion. The spaceship seems to have landed based on the lack of a shadow and the fact that he can see the sun. 

“What do we do now?” he asks weakly, staring at the sleeping alien and the purple arm that Thor is still holding and staring at.

“KILL HIM!” the large alien bellows and stomps.

“Hey Drax, there’s a battle going on right now, how about you go help?” Tony asks, seeming well prepared to deal with the large guy which appears to be good.

“There is nothing I am better prepared for,” Drax, apparently, says and thunders into battle. He manages to knock out one of the enemy aliens immediately so there’s some truth to what he’s saying. Steve nearly thanks Tony for it.

“He is very strong,” the antenna-alien says in a very shaky voice, swaying a little in her crouch on Thanos’ shoulder.

“Yes, we established this the first time we did this Mantis,” Tony says dismissively and Steve just stares at him. They’ve done this _before_? “We still need to figure out what to do with him.”

Thanos groans lowly and her gigantic body sways. Mantis sways with him, nearly falling over. When she squeaks in response, spider webs just shoot out from behind him and tie Thanos to the ground.

“Thanks, Pete,” Tony says and Steve looks around to see the spider-kid without his mask looking pretty proud of himself. And by that, he means that the kid is beaming.

“We shouldn’t kill him,” red-cape guy says in a firm voice and every head seems to turn to look at him.

“We shouldn’t kill him?” Tony questions, his eyebrows shooting upwards. He takes a step toward the red-cape guy. “Are you out of your mind, Strange? Of course, we’re killing him.”

“Oh, we’re killing him, all right!” another unknown voice yells out and Steve turns to see another guy walk out of the treeline with a weird looking gun aimed straight at Thanos. “He killed Gamora!”

Steve doesn’t ask who Gamora is. He’s too confused. He just looks at Thor who’s trying to get the Gauntlet off of Thanos’ severed arm. There’s lightning at his fingertips which is new. Probably since everything is new and Steve is confused and just wants to go home at this point.

“Please hurry,” Mantis squeaks out. 

“I’m putting him in the mirror dimension!” Strange announces, walking forward with purpose. No one questions him, either on the order or just what the mirror dimension is. Steve would ask, but he doesn’t need any more confusion today. “You can kill him later, but for now, the Masters of the Mystic Arts would like to contain him until further notice.”

“The Masters of the Mystic Arts?” he repeats in a whisper as Strange continues advancing on the sleeping Thanos who has begun to groan more.

“They’re wizards,” Pete supplies and Steve just nods. They watch in silence as Strange pulls his hands out and creates what looks like floating mirror shards and Steve just doesn’t question it. 

“Hey, hey, what are you doing?” Tony asks, apparently not cool with the mirror dimension thing and catches up to Strange who just ignores him and the mirror shards enclose Thanos who just disappears. It doesn’t feel real, but Steve isn’t going to question it. He’ll take anything at this point. 

“He’s in the mirror dimension. We use it to train and to contain criminals,” Strange says and dismisses Tony immediately who glares at him. “Now I hear there’s a battle.”

“Oh yeah,” he says, snapping back to reality. “Some alien hoard, I don’t know. You can kill them though.”

It’s not a very good explanation, but Steve really has no clue what’s going on. He’s learned to just go with it when it comes to alien armies. They happen. 

“Good enough for me,” Tony says and his helmet snaps back on after he sends one more glare at Strange which appears to be some kind of _we’ll talk about this later_ thing that, once again, Steve isn’t going to question. “Peter, you stay here and keep an eye on the glove. And don’t even try to complain. You stowed away on an alien ship leaving Earth without permission. You’re sitting this one out.”

Steve looks between them a few times as Pete argues and Tony argues back, trying to figure out their relationship before just deciding to ignore it. He takes a deep breath and just heads back into the treeline to find some aliens to fight. That he can do without being horribly confused. 

The rest of the battle feels a bit like a dream. Steve just switches off his brain and lets his body do the work, punching and stabbing aliens with whatever he can find. He finds himself battling beside T’Challa, Nat, Hulk, Tony, the other guy with the weird gun, Drax, and Groot, and he just goes with it. He just keeps punching aliens until there are no more aliens to punch.

The aftermath goes in a very similar way as he walks around almost in a trance. The Wakandans gather together while the aliens with the weird gun guy gather together. Both groups appear to be mourning.

He’s surprised to see no new or previous Avengers dead considering how many have died in the battle. Vision seems to be weak and it’s all very awkward with everyone huddling together in little groups, but overall, they’re okay. 

“You should go take your man somewhere private,” Tony says in his hear and Steve visibly jumps. He twists around to look at the man who looks just as tired as Steve feels.

“My man?” he questions and raises his eyebrows at Tony who just gives him a look. Steve doesn’t argue; he’s too tired. “I think there might be more important things.”

“Nah. I don’t think any of us mortals need to worry about the infinity stones. Leave that to Thor and Strange and all those. They seem to know what to do with it. I hear they're talking about finding a way to bring back that Gamora girl and some of the other people Thanos killed. And we can have an epic Avenger reunion later.Maybe in a couple of days, I should probably get back to Pepper and I’ve got to get the kid back to New York soon,” Tony tells him and claps him on the shoulder. Steve stares at him for a few moments, taking in how much he’s matured in the past two years. 

“Okay,” he says softly and Tony gives him a small smile and tells him he’s going to have a stern talk with his teenage apprentice about asking for permission.

His walk over to Bucky is slow but sure. He was standing with Sam and Rhodey which is a group that Steve wasn’t expecting to be a friendship group, but he’ll take what he can get with that. He doesn’t even need to say something for Bucky to get what he wants and they walk side by side into the treeline again. 

“Hey,” he says in a quiet voice, trying to avoid looking at the bruises round Bucky’s neck.

“Hey,” Bucky replies and he’s standing so near that Steve can make out the color of his eyes. He has the shade memorized, but there’s something emotional about seeing those pale blue-green eyes for the first time in two years. He looks happier now. The dark circles under his eyes that were present before his stay in Wakanda are gone.

It makes his chest hurt with how happy it makes him. For the past few years, the biggest worry on his mind has always been Bucky. He just wants his best friend to be happy and to have a nice, peaceful life. God knows he deserves it.

“Stevie, you’re staring,” Bucky teases, breaking Steve out of his little trance. The tone is teasing, but there’s a bit of worry in there too. He can see it in his eyes too. 

“Sorry, I-” Steve starts, but his mouth runs dry. He just continues to just stare at his best friend in shock until he blurts out, “I love you.”

“Steve?” Bucky asks in a breathless voice.

“I love you,” he repeats, firmer this time, but his words are coming out much faster. “I know this isn’t the time for it and I don’t know if you… you know, I just. I love you Bucky. So much. And I don’t want you to feel pressured or anything and I don’t want to make things awkward between us. If I’m overstepping boundaries, just tell me, but I just-”

Thankfully, his awkward rant is interrupted by the feeling of Bucky’s lips on his. He wishes he could say he freezes for a few seconds before he kisses back, but he doesn’t. He just kisses Bucky with everything he has, wrapping his arms around him. It’s worth all the years waiting.

"I love you too, punk,” Bucky whispers when they pull away, resting his forehead on Steve’s. “And it’s definitely not the wrong time. I don’t think there is a wrong time in our case.”

Steve smiles and he feels a single tear of joy fall down his face. “We’re retiring, by the way. No more giant grape aliens that try to kill you. I’m done.”

“I’m good with that,” Bucky says and chuckles lightly. “I’m good with anything as long as it’s with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :)
> 
>  
> 
> come cry with me about infinity war on [tumblr](https://cosmo-k-i-d.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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